also luddite, 1811, from name taken by an organized band of weavers who destroyed machinery in Midlands and northern England 1811-16 for fear it would deprive them of work. Supposedly from Ned Ludd, a Leicestershire worker who in 1779 had done the same before through insanity (but that story first was told in 1847). Applied to modern rejecters of automation and technology from at least 1961. As an adjective from 1812.